Royal potato salad a l'Ottolenghi

800 g new potatoes, washed 

150 g frozen peas

20 g parsley leaves

20 g basil leaves

60 g pine seeds

60 g parmesan

2 cloves garlic

200 ml olive oil

1 tsp white wine vinegar

handful of mint leaves

5 boiled eggs (or 15 quail's eggs)

salt and pepper

Wash the potatoes, boil for around 20 minutes until soft but firm. Boil the eggs until ready (I reckon about 4 minutes is enough), then refresh in cold water. Blanche the peas for 30 seconds in boiling water, then rinse and refresh in cold water.

While the potatoes are boiling, add the parsley, basil, pine seeds, garlic and parmesan to a food processor and blend. Add in olive oil bit by bit until you have a runny pesto. 

When the potatoes are cooked and have cooled enough to handle, cut them in half or quarters, then mix in with the pesto, mint leaves and vinegar. Season with plenty of salt and pepper.

Peel and quarter the eggs, mix in gently with the potatoes, and serve. Add extra mint or parsley as garnish if you want.

Lancashire hotpot, or lamb stew

I wanted to make a lamb chop casserole, but when we went to the market to get some chops for the casserole, our friendly market butcher told us (in a blend of about 4 languages plus a lot of gesturing) that we'd ruin his very special chops if we stewed them, and so we should use shoulder meat instead.

It was fantastic.

I've adapted Nigel Slater's recipe ever so slightly, with a couple of extras on my part. All in all, it was very good, very quick, and rather tasty. This is perfect for a dark autumn evening, and the best part is it takes all of about 90 minutes to cook, from start to finish.

The portions are allegedly for 3, but I'd say you could stretch this out to about 4 or 5.

Ingredients:

Olive oil
600-700 g lamb shoulder, cut into bigger-than-bitesize pieces
1-2 carrots, roughly chopped
2-3 stalks celery, roughly chopped
2 onions, sliced
2 tbsp plain flour
900 ml-1 l beef stock (I used Bovril - 1 tsp per 250ml)
1-2 tomatoes
Thyme (8 sprigs or a lot of dried stuff)
1 bay leaf
100 g butter
2 roasting potatoes, cut into 0.5 cm-thick slices
salt and pepper to taste

Heat some oil in a medium- to large-sized pan (mine was 26 cm, which was big enough, or even too big) and brown the lamb on all sides (about 6 minutes all told) then move to a cast-iron pot (something you can heat over a flame on the stove and put in the oven). Depending on how fatty the lamb is, you might need to add some more olive oil in. If needed, do so now. Add the carrots, celery, and onion, cook for around 4-5 minutes until brown or soft, then stir in the flour, coating the vegetables in it. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, then pour in the stock, stir in so there is no lumpy flour, and simmer until the mixture has thickened. Pour the contents of the pan into the cast-iron pot, add in the tomatoes, 7 sprigs of thyme, and the bay leaves, season, and stir all together, then bring to the boil. Reduce temperature so the mixture is just simmering. Melt the butter, then layer the potato slices across the stew, overlapping where necessary and covering the top of the mixture. Brush the butter over the potatoes (or, if you're like me, you can pour the butter over everything), then shove it in the oven for an hour or so. I cooked it with the lid on for about 30 minutes, then took it off and cooked it without the lid for the last 30 minutes.

Serve with some crusty bread on the side.